Blue
蓝调 (translated as Blue) is a heavyweight robot built by Bots FC of Brooklyn, New York, which competed in the first season of King of Bots. A crowd favourite in North American robot combat, due to its technical specifications and unusual drive system, it reached the third round after winning its first battle on a Judges’ decision, against EarthShaker, and its second via knockout, against Thunderstorm. The robot is essentially a renamed and refined version of Bots FC's heavyweight, Mega Melvin, featuring improvements to the latter's chassis, electronics and weapon.http://www.botsfc.com/home/king-of-bots-we-go-to-china The name Blue originated from a competition held on Reddit, and is an intentional juxtaposition based on the robot's pink design. Design Blue is a low, box-shaped robot driven by four Mecanum wheels. Each wheel is powered by a brushless motor, and feature several rollers which allow the robot to drive forwards, backwards and sideways. This enables Blue to 'coast' across the arena in a controlled manner which allows it to always face opponents head-on. Blue's weapon is a powerful bladed axe, driven by two brushless electric motors, which allows the robot to hit opponents regularly and to self-right if flipped. The axe itself also features a second interchangeable hammer head with a flat end; both heads and the weapon arm are cut out of 1.5-inch and 2-inch thick Grade 5 titanium respectively.http://www.botsfc.com/home/the-road-to-robogames In addition to this weapon - one of the most powerful axes/hammers in robot combat - Blue also featured sets of front and rear wedges, enabling it to get underneath other robots and provide extra protection against spinning weapons. For the latter purpose, an optional ablative armor panel could be attached to the front wedge, offering even greater defense.http://www.botsfc.com/home/king-of-bots-episodes-3-4-recap The robot is finished in a tri-tone grey and white color-scheme, with pink central panels and axe/hammer heads; the latter a deliberate juxtaposition with its name. Robot History Season 1 Blue made its King of Bots debut in Episode 3, where it fought Chinese flipper EarthShaker in the first round. Immediately, it strafed out of the blue square and into EarthShaker, but was pushed into the wall spikes by the latter after exposing its side. Blue bumped into EarthShaker, striking the latter’s top panel with its axe before reversing and strafing towards EarthShaker once again. After a few misses, it axed EarthShaker’s flipper as its opponent pushed back, sliding off EarthShaker seconds before the latter flipped itself over. Capitalising on EarthShaker’s mistake, Blue drove round and attempted to hammer its baseplate, pushing EarthShaker sideways as it self-righted. Blue continued to strafe across the arena, at one point collecting EarthShaker from the side and striking it once again. It dodged another flip from EarthShaker as the latter got underneath and mistimed its attack, before hammering EarthShaker’s flipper twice more. However, EarthShaker quickly got underneath Blue again and tossed it into the air; Blue retracted its axe to say upright, landing back on its wheels near the blue square and losing a bolt from its axe head in the process. It recovered to axe EarthShaker’s flipper once again, but missed its next few axe blows, and was pushed sideways across the arena by EarthShaker before it could land its next blow. The two robots lingered near the grinders, but separated and eventually met again, with Blue again dodging a planned flip from EarthShaker before striking its flipper three more times. Strafing, Blue axed EarthShaker yet again, only to be flipped onto its back by the latter. However, it immediately self-righted before striking EarthShaker’s top-right panel and getting lifted by the floor rods. Blue hit EarthShaker’s flipper once more, but was lifted by a floor flipper and thrown over by EarthShaker again, requiring it to self-right a second time. For the remainder of the battle, it kept strafing and attempting to hit EarthShaker again, but without success, and dodged one last flip from EarthShaker before time ran out. As both robots were still mobile, the battle went to a Judges’ decision – the decision ruled in favour of Blue, putting it through to the second round. After the battle, judge Ian Lewis considered Blue to have been better controlled throughout, having praised its design and drive system when interviewed by Ling Zhou. In the second round, Blue faced Thunderstorm; before the battle began, Bots FC attached the ablative armor panel onto its front wedge in order to deflect and withstand the impacts of its opponent’s bar spinner. In the opening seconds, it drove and steered into Thunderstorm, knocking the latter back into the wall spikes and succeeding in causing one of its drive chains to break. Blue capitalized on Thunderstorm’s reduced mobility by pushing it along the wall spikes, axing its top-left panel and pinning it directly underneath a nearby hammer. Seconds later, it axed Thunderstorm’s left-front wheel, then its bar spinner, stopping the weapon from rotating. Momentarily stuck to its opponent, Blue dragged Thunderstorm back before retracting its axe, but missed an axe blow as it turned and pursued Thunderstorm again. As Thunderstorm spun its weapon up, Blue drifted in circles around it numerous times, before strafing across the arena floor into Thunderstorm’s spinner once again. Blue’s front armor withstood the collision, allowing it to push Thunderstorm into the wall spikes near the hammer. As it lined up for another attack, the hammer swung down; Blue’s axe struck the hammer arm and momentarily lifted its front wheels off the floor. It broke free to axe Thunderstorm a few more times, at which point Thunderstorm was left unable to drive away from the wall spikes. Blue spun and swung its axe again in celebration shortly after its opponent was counted out, progressing to the third round as a result. In the third round, Blue faced another vertical spinner, Grill Judge, retaining its anti-spinner armor. It hesitated in the blue square in the first few seconds, before driving towards and into Grill Judge’s front. As a result, Blue was pushed back into a corner by Grill Judge while both teams activated smokescreens in each other’s control areas; Blue fired its axe twice, but without hitting Grill Judge, and sustained damage to its armor and chassis following successive hits from Grill Judge’s spinner. Another hit resulted in Blue getting catapulted across the arena by Grill Judge – although Blue landed upright, the impact bent its chassis, impeding the robot’s maneuvrability as Grill Judge slammed it into the wall spikes and pushed it over the flame jets. The two competitors separated; Blue steered into and up Grill Judge’s wedges again, resulting in it being spun away after another collision with the latter’s spinner. Undeterred, Blue strafed and drove itself into Grill Judge twice more, sustaining more damage to its anti-spinner armor in the process. It was then pushed across the arena again by Grill Judge, sustaining even more damage, as it became apparent that its axe was no longer functioning. Shepherded into a corner, Blue spun round and momentarily drove away from Grill Judge – another hit from the latter launched it into the wall and tore its anti-spinner panel open. Blue sustained more damage following another head-on attack from Grill Judge, before spinning, strafing and dodging its opponent for some time. This was until Blue’s wedge made contact with Grill Judge’s spinner again, causing a vast volley of sparks to fly. More parts of Blue’s anti-spinner armor were torn off, before Blue backed into a corner and attempted to pursue Grill Judge. In doing so, it veered towards the circular saws, one of which lifted Blue off the floor and sent an even larger shower of sparks flying. This left Blue vulnerable to two more attacks from Grill Judge, which proceeded to push it over the saws and throw it onto its back. With its axe disabled, Blue was left unable to self-right, and was declared immobile with seconds of the battle remaining. Although the televised battle showed Blue being counted out and eliminated via knockout, it had actually been immobilized late enough in the battle to survive to a Judges’ decision. Shortly after time ran out, Blue sustained another attack from Grill Judge, although neither the decision nor the latter attack were shown or mentioned. Regardless, it and Bots FC were eliminated from the competition. Blue also fought in a Tag Team battle at the end of the series. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 2 *Losses: 1 Outside King of Bots Blue competes outside of King of Bots under the Mega Melvin name, and was originally intended to be entered into Series 9-10 of Robot Wars under this guise. However, it and Bots FC were not selected to compete for either series. Mega Melvin first appeared at the Orlando Maker Faire 2016, where it entered the HW Sportsman Class competition. At the event, it fought several battles against robots such as Old Iron and Witch Doctor, each intended to test its drive systems and axe weapon. A second version of Mega Melvin was built in 2017, carrying over the motors and gearboxes of the original version while featuring a new axe arm, weapon shaft and front and rear wedges.http://www.botsfc.com/home/the-road-to-robogames This version initially competed under its original name at RoboGames 2017, but was eliminated early after losing both of its battles to Polar Vortex and Megalodon respectively. Bots FC's experience from this event enabled them to carry out modifications to Mega Melvin ahead of its transformation into Blue. References External Links *Bots FC website *[http://kobchina.com/robot/62 Blue on the official King of Bots website (Chinese)] Category:King of Bots competitors Category:Season 1 competitors Category:Robots from the United States of America Category:Robots with Bladed Axes Category:Robots with Hammers Category:Robots with Interchangeable Weaponry Category:Robots from New York